Technical Field
The present invention relates to an external stereo microphone device attached to; for instance, a mobile electronic device a cellular phone.
Related Art
Multifunctional mobile electronic devices, like cellular phones, tablet terminals, and PDAs, have recently become widespread. There are cases where such a mobile electronic device is used in audio and video recoding applications. However, since many of the mobile electronic devices are not designed solely for audio (video) recording purposes, they are not equipped with microphones suitable for audio recording. Against the backdrop, several stereo microphone devices that can be attached to the mobile electronic devices as appropriate have hitherto been proposed.
The stereo microphone device attached to the mobile electronic device is required to enable reorientation of microphones over a wide range. A cellular phone, in particular, often has cameras on both front and rear sides thereof. When a moving image is recorded by use of the front camera of the cellular phone, it is desired that the microphone be oriented forwardly. In contrast to this, when a moving image is recorded by use of the rear camera, it is desirable to orient the microphone backwardly. For this reason, the microphone must be reoriented through about 180 degrees. As mentioned above, when the microphones are reoriented, operational feeling achieved during reorientation naturally becomes important. In particular, when operational load imposed during reorientation of a microphone is too small, actual feeling of operation hardly occurs in the user, which will in turn cause the user to feel uneasy and insufficiency. However, no external stereo microphone devices taking into account such operational feeling have heretofore been available.
Some of the stereo microphone devices built in recorders enable appropriate reorientation of microphones. Recorders that enable reorientation of microphones are disclosed in; for instance, JP 2009-171355 A and JP 4072679 B and JP 4753978 B. However, none of the techniques described in connection with JP 2009-171355 A and JP 4072679 B and JP 4753978 B take into account operational feeling achieved during reorientation of microphones.
Accordingly, the present invention is intended for providing an external stereo microphone device that makes it possible to enhance operational feeling when microphones are reoriented.